Finished just in time to submit to the ART HOP juried show, which will be taking place in the Soda Plant on Pine Street in Burlington. Meanwhile, the Shelburne Artist Market is still happening every Saturday from 9 to 1, across the street from Shelburne’s massive farmers market. Stop by!

I felt more alive in general, bounding out of bed, and eventually, into a rhythm of painting every morning before the heat of the day really got serious. And the camaraderie, even without a shared language in many cases, was almost a given. Camaraderie, or was I just a spectacle…? In any case, inevitably there would be a whole crowd around my easel, around and behind me, discussing what I was doing, discussing discussing. Sure wish I could have understood what they were saying!

Here I am set up across the street from our hostal, Hospedaje San Jorge, on the southern edge of the street market (mercado).

This one is unfinished, from the porch of our hostal. Can’t wait to get back to work on the paintings I brought home. Twelve of them. What am I waiting for.

I don’t know how to get myself really wholeheartedly back in good old Vermont, after such an experience. Here in VT I feel very closed in, seeing so few people on a given day in comparison with the constant social settings that are very present in a city where the streets have no names, but people are right there and very present.

It might be a New England thing, that people are so very focused on their own worlds, that unless I am very aggressive about saying hello, how are you, etc, there’s just no human contact. Funny how people can go around and not even see the other people in front of them.

Maybe it’s something different altogether; I have heard from older women friends that when a woman gets to a certain age such as over 50, she becomes more or less invisible. Now that’s a cheerful thought!

But I am only one person. It is hard to accept that Jay is seen as a better host. His appeal can only be understood as one that serves some lowest common denominator. Talking in terms of IQ, Jay may well be less threatening to that vast and rather insular middle of the country, where status quo goes; especially after an evening already spent on the couch in front of a TEE VEE… I dunno, I guess I’ll have even less to turn the TEE VEE on for, and should be grateful. Wait, no, didn’t I just discover 24 this week?

If ever there is a good time to take stock and shift focus, it’s now at the end of new years weekend, while we are all blizzarded in! I’d like to relax a little more in 2010. I’m no where near ready to retire, in fact, I don’t think I would ever even want to. But like most of you all, there are things I would like to be doing more. For example, relaxing with friends and family, painting, writing and reading; things that all seem to get pushed off the lineup too easily in a typical day.

I’ve taken steps to insure that some of these things will indeed happen in 2010: a February trip to Nicaragua to paint with a friend is fast becoming a reality. As January gets underway I am wondering what it will be like to be one of those who migrate south for a little bit of the New England winter. Will I become a regular escapee, like so many around these parts? Will I like Central America? I’ve never been south of Key West. Can I manage to do enough painting and writing to be able to whole heartedly count the trip as an independent study part of my graduate program at UVM? (answers: probably, yes, and absolutely yes!).